City Council - workshop

I would like to call to order the Tuesday, July 7th City of Concord Council Work Session. Welcome, everybody. Looking over our agenda for Thursday, we're gonna drop down to public hearings, which is D. The other items will be handled on Thursday at the regular meeting. And I think Chris Kelly is here to talk with us about this public hearing that will be coming up. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mayor Morris, members of council, Mr. Payne, Mr. Teedy, and Ms. Jenkins. Let me see. This rezoning request is a joint submission by Lois Hardister, property owner of 600 Hyde Park Drive, shown by the number one on the map, and Brandon Moose, property owner of the adjacent vacant parcel, shown by the number two. Both requests total just under half an acre, with the current zoning being C2 General Commercial, and they were requesting to be rezoned to RC Residential Compact. Staff took some drone photos of the property. On the left, looking north to the site, you can see the existing single-family residence with the adjacent vacant parcel. On the right, you can see a photo looking south to the site. Here, you can really see the proximity to North Church Street and a number of commercial businesses along North Church Street, such as the Domino's and Automobile Repair. Additionally, if you're familiar with the area, you have the My Eye Doctor on the corner of North Church and Weinkauf Avenue. So again, these properties are currently zoned C2. Adjacent to the east and west, you have C2 commercially zoned properties. However, these commercially zoned properties are used for residential. Therefore, they're deemed legal nonconformities. Adjacent properties to the north are zoned RC and used residentially. And to the south, finally, in between North Church Street and Hyde Park Drive, you have commercially zoned properties that are used commercially. The 2030 land use plan currently designates the subject properties as suburban neighborhood. However, the RC zoning district is not listed as a corresponding zoning classification. Therefore, this request will require a land use plan amendment to urban neighborhood as the RC is listed as a corresponding zoning classification. Before you on the screen is the suggested statement of consistency supporting approval and denial. On the left, you have language supporting approval from the planning and recommended unanimously by the Planning and Zoning Commission. Alternatively, supporting denial you have on the right. And next steps, approve or deny the statement of consistency, approve or deny the zoning map amendment, and approve or deny the land use plan amendment. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Okay, questions for Chris?

Chris, I have one. And I may have just missed it in the packet. If I did, I apologize. So it's interesting that we've got two different owners or two different applicants. So we're submitting both of those parcels. They each own one together. Are they joining those?

They're joints. One application, one submission. Joint request. Okay. All right.

Thank you.

Can you go back and let us look at that map again, please?

Which map would you like to see? The zoning map?

I think there was one prior to this. Yeah, this one.

Okay.

I was just trying to kind of get a spatial location where we are.

Okay.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All right.

Thank you, sir. Okay, next up, I think Mary Carr is going to talk with us about the public hearing number two.

Good evening, Mayor, members of council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Kolchinski. My item this evening is the request to approve the submission of the 2026-2027 Annual Action Plan for the Community Development Home Program and Community Development CDBG, or Community Development Block Grant Program. So this is the regulatory requirement. Each year, home requires an action plan for the CDBG and home programs. This is included in the budget that was approved. The funding allocation for the CDBG program is $636,888, and that does include a projected $900 of program income, and that program income does come from either properties that are sold that have liens against them, or either it is the repayment of a project that is required under the program. And the budget for the home program was $1,355,886.82. The 82 cent was terribly important to HUD. That does include program income for home in the amount of $85,799, and that again is projected for the funds that will be repaid by homeowners for their rehab loans or either repayments that should be coming in this year for the sale of property. Again, this is included in the budget each year, so it's already been approved. This is simply the request to submit this to HUD. We did provide public input from January the 4th to March 31st. We did also have two in-person public hearings. Those were held on March the 11th and March the 26th. As with previous years, we had much more response from the online piece than we did the in-person. But all of those comments that we did receive were included or are included in our annual plan that was included in your packet. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Do you actually think anybody from HUD reads this?

So oddly enough, our HUD rep will review to make sure that there are certain points that are in it. And if those points are not in there, she is more than happy to send it back to us and tell us we've done it wrong. Outside of her, no.

Okay. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Okay, next up, I think Rashaun is going to talk to us about Neighborhood Matching Grant Awards.

Hello. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, Mr. Payne, Mrs. Kolchinski, and Mrs. Jenkins. I'm here today to talk about our Neighborhood Matching Grant Program. This program is an exclusive incentive that we offer to our recognized neighborhoods We have 59 neighborhoods that are active in our program. We give each active neighborhood the opportunity to apply for matching grant funds for up to $3,000 for either a community event or a community improvement project. We approved a total of 30,000 funds for the fiscal year 26-27, and we received 16 applications from 16 recognized neighborhoods. We had a committee comprised of six coworkers representing six neighborhoods, excuse me, six departments within the city. They met on June 2nd, and they went through each application and reviewed all 16 applications and scored it based on 105 points. Each application, we consider whether the project or event is a community partnership, if it's a... if the project is ready to get started by the time that we award. And it's a long list of points that each neighborhood could receive, totaling 105. So each neighborhood that score over 65 points, we had 12 neighborhoods that scored over 65 points. And we are asking that you allow them to receive the funds for up to 3,000. If you approve this on Thursday, we will have 12 projects that we recommend. And if you look on page 70 of your packet, you'll be able to see the names of each neighborhood that applied, as well as the project descriptions and the individual amounts and total amounts for their total project. So if you do decide to approve the 12 recommended projects, we will use the full 30,000 that we allocated for fiscal year 26-27. And I am open if you have any questions about the projects or what neighborhoods that apply. One thing I forgot to mention is out of the 16 applications that we received, we only had four applicants that we did not recommend for funding.

And potentially there could have been how many recognized? 59?

We have 59 active neighborhoods in the program, but a total of 83 that we recognize throughout the city. So in order to stay active in our program each year, each neighborhood has to submit a membership renewal form. and that remains you as active in the program.

Right.

So 59 of those 83 neighborhoods are active, and they had the opportunity to apply for this funding.

So what would you attribute the 16? I mean, there are a whole lot of other neighborhoods that would be eligible for, I noticed one's a National Night Out event and other things. Do you think it's a lack of... organization or just awareness or?

I think that the main thing is in order for you to complete a project, the HOA have to agree with the entire community. So it has to be a project that's not only the idea of the board, but also have the support of all of the residents in the community. So I think it's more about educating the board on how they can get everyone that lives in the community to agree on the project and then they're open to apply. We have a newsletter that goes out every month, and that's how I promote to all of our recognized neighborhoods. Also, our city liaisons, when they attend meetings, they announce this opportunity to all of our recognized neighborhoods. And this year we had 16. Since I've been here, this is the most that we've had since the past. So there's opportunity for more neighborhoods to take part of this program. So maybe we can grow it next year.

Right. Okay. Thank you.

Hi. So just a quick question. In order for them to become part of the neighborhood recognition program, would it just be apply?

Yes. So you have to have an official board. So any community can apply as long as your community has board leadership. If there is a community that's interested in applying, I can help them organize to create a board leadership bylaws. So you have to have an official community board that meets elites every month. and the applications is available on our website and we apply and then I present those applications to the council and then you can vote to approve the neighborhood.

Can I ask a question? I'm sorry, go ahead. What's the synopsis criteria of how you apply? All those rules and regulations are sent out on your information newsletter, I guess, but what is, give a quick digest.

So we have a program policy and I present this program policy to the neighborhoods in person We have a virtual workshop where I can go over the program policy and give them ideas on different community projects that they can apply for. And I just use the program policy to explain the criteria to apply. So what I've noticed since I've been in this role is most of the projects that we receive applications for is construction projects or community development projects within the community. But this year we have one neighborhood apply for an event. So the attention is just so that we can work towards goal five of our strategic plans to try to get our communities to work together and also to work with us.

And each one of them involves matching funds from the community as well?

Yes, so the community has to complete the project and then they submit a reimbursement request to us and we can reimburse them for the cost of their project up to $3,000. So no more than that.

Great. Other questions? All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Next up, Phillip Graham is going to talk to us about the street preservation program.

All right. Thank you, Mayor, members of council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Glodzinski, Ms. Jenkins. This is our annual resurfacing contract. We put this out to bid, received six bids on June 24th. with the lowest bid being $5.5 million with the NJR incorporated group. We're doing 26.2 lane miles of roads this year, 2,000 tons of asphalt patching, and all of this work is set to be completed within 270 days of the notice to proceed. We'll note this also includes our major resurfacing program. This year's street is McGill Avenue. We'll be resurfacing and working with Parks and Rec on the restriping of that with plans that we've worked together on. Happy taking questions.

Okay, questions for Phillip.

Phillip, how often do we do? We had that truck that came and evaluated all the streets. How often do we do that? I thought it was an amazing project.

Yeah, we do that about every three or so years, kind of depending on how the winters are. We can stretch it closer to five years. Our last one is only about a year old right now. So that's the data we're running. This is actually the first contract running off of that data since we've analyzed it. And we recently went to a workshop comparing that data with other cities. And I know that people cared most about the road in their front yard, but we actually score probably some of the highest scores on average across the state around our peers. So it's turned out really well.

Just a quick question, Philip. Have we worked with NJR Group before?

We have. Okay. Yeah, we have. More recently, they've won quite a few of the NCDOT contracts. So we're looking at most of their more recent contract work they've done, and they seem to be completing those projects relatively close to on time.

Aren't they doing the bypass on Rock Hill Church? Are they doing that one as well?

Yes, the Union Cemetery project, yes. Yep, yep, yep. They're doing that one, and they have a number of the intersection realignment just in general in the area. Division 10, they've won a lot of their contracts since they're close by.

Okay, any other questions? All right, thank you, sir. Thank you. OK, next, Taylor Morris is going to talk to us about the skate park, pump track, sculpture garden, et cetera.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, Mr. Payne, Ms. Kolchinski, Ms. Jenkins. It's my honor to introduce the work that's been conducted for the Academy Gibson Skate Park, Pump Track, and Sculpture Garden in coordination with the firm Withers Ravenel as a part of the bond projects. Here, we'll just take a quick reintroduction to the site. So currently, we're looking from the southwest corner of You've got Kerr Street on your bottom left, Cedar Drive on your right. This is the future location of the skate park, the pump track, a restroom building, and shelter with additional parking, as you'll see in file and design. And then on this portion of the site, we're seeing Clearwater Art Center and Studios to your left, part of the Village Greenway that leads up towards Academy Recreation Center. And this is the location for the sculpture garden and performance areas. Now the master plan for the overall Academy-Gibson projects were approved by council in September of 2022. As you can see here, this was the overall master plan. And then highlighting specifically the area that's closest to Clearwater, encompassing an open space with a shelter, some loop trail, and then as you can see on here, a pump track that evolved into us looking at the skate park from that point. So strengthening design, Weathers-Evernell partnered with American Ramp Company for the skate park and pump track and then SE Architects for the restroom, shelter, and all the elevations, taking a look at everything. But second to none, it was the community that brought in quite a bit of the input, furthering all the design past the master planning process. I'm gonna ask John Blasco, Senior Project Manager from Withers Ravenel to present the information that has transformed this particular project into its final design and where we're at today.

All right, good afternoon. Happy to be here. Happy to see you all. This is the fun stuff. This is stuff I love to do. I'm a landscape architect and senior project manager at Weather 7L. As Taylor said, we had a robust community engagement process. Two different scenarios here up on the screen. We've got American Ramp Company, who is our skate park and pump track designer, actually came out to the site. They brought some of their pro riders. riders who are well known throughout that community to actually work with the community. They work to determine what the local skate park or skater and just wheel enthusiasts were most interested for the site. So they got that feedback. They're able to talk to the kind of their idols and really get the kids excited, get the community excited. Additionally, we met with the Clearwater Arts Center one day a couple years ago. We came out and did a three-tier community engagement session, met with the stakeholders early in the morning. We did a design charrette in the afternoon where we actually asked the stakeholders to help design the site. And then that evening we presented our concepts to the community for feedback. So taking all that feedback from the riders, from the SKATE ENTHUSIASTS FROM THE ART CENTER, FROM THE COMMUNITY REALLY TOOK ALL THAT INFORMATION AND PULLED IT TOGETHER INTO A FINAL DESIGN. So this is the site, just to kind of orient you, Cedar Drive is on the top, Kerr Street's on the right. They got the greenway and streamed that bisect the site, so just a little bit skewed from the aerial image that Taylor showed, but hopefully that orients you a little bit. Clearwater Arts Center there is at the bottom. I'll zoom in to each section to kind of talk a bit more in detail. So zooming into the skate park pump track side, we've got a parking lot that accommodates 18, 20 cars or so. We've got a skate park that incorporates a variety of elements that are meant for all ages, all different wheels. So skates, rollerblades, scooters, you're trying to think about all ages. So really trying to get not just one specific community of riders, but trying to get the broader community of riders activated. THIS IS ALSO WHERE WE HAVE OUR RESTROOM AND SHELTER BUILDING, WHICH I'LL SHOW YOU A RENDERING OF HERE SHORTLY. AND THEN WE HAVE OBVIOUSLY WE'VE GOT TO CONTROL OUR STORM WATER ON SITE, SO WE'RE REALLY LEANING INTO SUSTAINABLE GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNOLOGIES. CONSTRUCTED WETLAND, WHICH IS THAT KIND OF THE BIGGER OBLONG SHAPE. meant to really mimic the ecological functions of a wetland and control our stormwater coming off all that pavement. Additionally, we have a rain garden there at the bottom end of the parking lot. So really thinking about how do we control our stormwater in a very sustainable, but also aesthetically pleasing way. You know, these aren't big, you know, grass, bowls that you put a fence around. These are something that have a very robust plant life, attracts wildlife and such. So it should hopefully be an actually more of a attractor, more of a feature to the park rather than just a big ugly bowl of water. Looking here a little bit at the skate park. So some of the features that you'll start to see in this, a ramp or quarter pipe and half pipe ramp that will attract different levels of skill. It allows kids who are young and maybe learning a chance to start off slow, build up. You can see the bowl there that varies from four to six feet in depth. Again, giving a wide range of opportunities for those different skill levels. Here's another angle of that. In addition to the half pipe and bowl, you'll see a variety of ledges and rails and stairs, all things that allow kids to do a whole bunch of different activities and tricks. Again, starting off early, building up to a much bigger or higher skill level. You can see on the left side of this image, that would be the pump track. This is based off of a design that is used in competitions internationally. So as the park develops, as this gets developed, as the excitement builds, there's actually the opportunity for this to be a competition level facility. So to be able to attract events and competitions from across the region. So I think a lot of opportunity and excitement for this park. Again, you can also see the different rails, different levels of stairs. Again, the whole idea is to bring the broader community together to give them a wide range of activities, skill levels, and allow kids to really start off slow, build and grow, and become really excellent riders. This is the restroom shelter building. We're really proud of this. We see a lot of cookie cutter buildings. This one has a lot of really nice architectural features. It integrates a picnic shelter into the roof line so that there's a place for the kids to hang out and escape the sun. It's a place to hold birthday parties. It's the place for kids to sit and wait while their friends are arriving to the park. So we think that's a really nice feature of the park and we'll add to that aesthetic appearance. So jumping over the creek onto the Clearwater Arts side. Yeah, we always thought it was a little weird to have a skate park and pump track combined with a sculpture garden, but I think just the way the site is divided naturally really makes a lot of sense. So the sculpture garden and performance area is tied to the Clearwater Arts Center, as we said. The idea for this was really to give an open space where the art staff can really curate an outdoor art gallery, the opportunity to place sculptures. None of it is prescriptive. It's really more about the opportunity. So a lot of things that were talked about in that design process were can we have art that is interactive? Can people go up and touch it, feel it, possibly climb on it, depending on what the piece is? So it really provides that opportunity. And then you can see the stage area. For now, it's a temporary stage area. You're pulling a trailer, set up some platforms. It's an opportunity for maybe a Friday night bluegrass band or maybe a comedian wants to come out. But it's an opportunity for the city to hold small events here. That lawn where it says mural walk is actually sloped towards the stage. So it starts to provide that amphitheater feel to it. Adjacent to that kind of lawn area is that mural wall. So the idea, not fully designed yet, it's really going to be part of an art piece, but the idea of a wall that can be an art piece that A, helps define the space, helps kind of screen the adjacent uses, but also gives artists a really nice canvas that can kind of change over time. And then finally we've got the dining terrace there, which is an opportunity for the city can bring out food trucks, park the food trucks there in the parking areas. People can have a spot to sit down and eat their food while the event's going on or while they're wandering around the the sculpture garden. So a couple of views of that. This is from that dining terrace. So again, the different pavement materials help really define those spaces. You move through it, but you can also stop and stand and sit, read a book, eat your dinner. WHATEVER. SO IT GIVES THAT PLACE, THAT KIND OF OPPORTUNITY TO JUST BE AWAY FROM THE HUBBUB. AND THEN YOU CAN SEE HERE'S THAT EVENT LAWN LOOKING DOWN TOWARDS THE STAGE. IT'S POSSIBLE IN THE FUTURE THAT MAYBE THAT WILL BE A PERMANENT STAGE. I THINK THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WILL DEVELOP OVER TIME. AND THERE'S THE MURAL WALL. AGAIN, THIS ISN'T MEANT TO BE PRESCRIPTIVE. THIS ISN'T THE FINAL DESIGN OF THAT WALL, BUT THE IDEA IS THAT it'll be an art piece that an artist will be commissioned or maybe even multiple artists will be commissioned to provide their own touch on the space. So with that, kind of the big thing that everyone wants to know is where we are with budget. We're sitting about $3.9 million conservatively. We had a third party cost estimator come in and do an estimate for us. So this is based on some, I won't say real numbers because it's not a bid, but it's based on numbers that have been seen in the industry. So it's kind of where we feel like we're sitting right now. And with that, we'll take any questions.

I have one, please. I'm not obviously real cool. So pump track means bicycle?

So it means it could be any wheeled, any non-motorized wheeled device. So bicycles, rollerblades, like the Razor scooters, anything that's not motorized. And the idea is that you use your body weight and your momentum, you have to carry you through. So you kind of up and down and shift your weight and it helps you carry through those dips in the hills and the turns.

So a skate park and a pump track, you can skate or ride a bike on either one. Correct. Right. And then how much distance, like, is it a mile track? If you were like measuring it, is it a one mile? No, it's pretty short.

I don't know the exact distance, but it's, it's, it's probably even less than a quarter mile. So it's pretty short, but the idea is that it gives you a lot of different movements as you kind of make your way around it.

Okay, great. Thank you so much. I appreciate that clarification. You're welcome.

Councilman Crawford said he can't wait to get on his skates and be there.

50 years ago, I would have done that. I'm right there with you. I would be out there on my skateboard if I was a few years younger.

But I do have a couple of questions. And some you might know the answer, and some might just be parks and recs. But this is very niche. And it's amazing, though, to have this facility here. But when we started developing this plan, and obviously it's way before my time, How did we actually gather information from like kids stating this is what I want? This is something that we will use. And what are the kids using now that this will become its replacement? But also I see different things like food trucks and all of that. Is that going to be managed by parks and recs or what? Just, I need a little bit more information on that.

So I can speak a little bit to the skate park on track. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. It is a little niche. It's not something that we see so many parks that have the playground and maybe splash pad or pickleball court. But in the work we do, I work all across the state, and we're seeing just a much stronger desire for those wheeled sports. the skate park, the pump tracks, we're seeing it. A lot of clients are asking for it across the state. Additionally, when we did the master plan, I wasn't part of the master plan process, because I wasn't at Weathers Rebnell at that point, but my boss, who was at that point, our typical process is a community engagement, a community-driven process. I think Taylor can probably speak a little bit more to the specifics, but often we meet with the community and really, we meet with the community early and even before we present a design, we meet with the community to see what do you guys want? What excites you? What activities are you missing? What activities do you need? And then we take that feedback and develop into an actual park design. But maybe Taylor can speak a little bit more specifically.

So in the master plan process, we were surveying, had consistent surveys that were going out to the community ahead of coming to council for looking for the bonds. And but through that process and even before my time, I've been with the city for 14 and a half years. And from week one, I was asked if I could figure out a place for a skate park. And others were doing the same. They were looking for researching the area. And within that, or from that time on, we've been asked consistently for different opportunities, specifically for wheeled opportunities. Pump tracks have been developed in the years since the time of being asked to first look for a skate park opportunity. And so we found that there were more asks that were coming through on the survey side of things initially whenever we were going through the master plan process. After the master plan had been approved, as you can see on the master plan, it was specifically pointing out pump track. I'm going in the wrong direction. Can you help me back up here? So that we can... to see that initially we were looking specifically at a pump track opportunity, but as we started to survey specifically the community, inviting the community to come to the meetings, be introduced to American Ramp Company, to some of the professional skaters, immediately the bite was there that they were looking for more. They were looking for more or less a wheeled playground, and more of a plaza style than a modular style. So modular just meaning that there are some sites that you'll go to that's simply like a tennis court or an old parking lot and there are ramps that have been placed out there that you can move from spot to spot if you needed to. What our community was looking for was more of a plaza style, concrete playground, a permanent structure that has the ability to be influenced by what is referred to as DIY style. meaning that they have the ability to have open space, not to necessarily bring in their own ramps, but to be able to alter some of the activity that they're doing on some of the lower rails, some of the lower tabletops, that sort of thing. So it all came from community input, the drive from the times when we were meeting over at Clearwater specifically, but even prior to that, we've been reaching out and asking what folks were looking for, and then surveying. And I don't mean the question of surveying, I mean observing and surveying what was going on in around downtown, what was going on in around Academy or the Gibson Village neighborhood. We've got a lot of riders in the neighborhood and we've had that consistently for over 15 years now. In fact, the numbers have grown. And then we had a location that was in Concord over, Skate helped me out with the location, but it was over by Big Lots. What's applied on it? There was this indoor skate park that was there. It's no longer there. There's nothing that's serving the community here in Concord now. Mooresville is where everyone's been going here over the last few years since that location was developed, and they're getting folks from around the nation coming in. John had mentioned the pump track specifically being a location to provide – future events and everything of that nature. That's what we were looking for, but we're looking to be able to serve all levels of riders. So that pump track has the capability of doing just that along with the design specified for this skate park. But we were looking for the social environment, or that's what the ask has been from the community is the social environment. That's why we've gone in the direction of the plaza style. And then on the events portion of things with the food truck, What we've been looking at is to reduce, and you've seen this in some of the other bond projects where we're actually implementing with adding in electrical stoves instead of utilizing generators on the food trucks, it reduces sound, just overall pollution of the space. So we anticipate this, Clearwater already being a reservable site, is also an event site. We've been hosting some concerts and things there over the last couple of years. This is a growth opportunity to be able to bring in some additional vendors into this space, into an intimate performance space, as well as just a space that lends itself well to the community that's walkable as well. So I hope that answers that.

I lived this activity through my grandson, so I've been to the pump track or was when it was over behind the big lots and all that, and it's gone, as you say, so no place to go anymore. Is this a caliber, the skate park itself, is it of caliber where you host events like a competition and that kind of thing, would be able to do that kind of thing here?

Yeah, so the intent is that it can host some level of competition. While it's designed to host, a very large or very high level of competition. I think the site itself is gonna limit it to a smaller, maybe city-wide, regional-wide. It has the quality to attract a national audience, but I think the parking constraints and the overall size may help, may kind of constrain that some, but the quality is there. The types of movements, the types of components really speak to that kind of higher level of competition.

One, I look forward to seeing the mayor launch this thing on your skateboard.

I think that can be arranged, absolutely.

But it's a legal question. Knowing a couple kids who do this, what happens when they break their arm and they go to the hospital? What is our legal, this is a Valerie question.

It's no different than any other park. Yeah, or really the sidewalk. If provided that there was no negligence involved, then there's really no liability there. It's an exception. Parks are an exception because the legislature realizes that parks should be provided and cities should not be constrained from doing that by getting sued every time a kid falls down.

I'll go ahead and add just a small tidbit. I don't want to overstep the attorneys because you're the expert. But as far as the negligence piece is American Ram Company, who is our designer, they are a nationally recognized skate park and pump track designer. They've worked, I think, probably every state across the country. This is what they do. They are riders themselves. So I would say there's a high level of confidence that the skill and the care that went into the design is not a fly-by-night, someone making it up on the back of a napkin. It's fully thought out by riders, by experts. So I think you can feel really confident knowing that that negligence piece goes away because of that skill and the care that goes into it.

And that's something that's more likely to occur 30 years from now when somebody comes to make a repair.

OK, additional questions? Thank you very much. Thank you. OK, I think Valerie is now going to talk with us about an interlocal agreement with Cabarrus County.

So some years ago, the city entered into an economic development agreement with Concord Master Venture. These are the people who built the Novi buildings, the three Novi buildings. That economic development agreement provides them an economic development incentive, obviously. At the same time, and in conjunction with that, the city entered into an interlocal agreement with Cabarrus County, which, among other things, provided for a pass-through grant. It's a fairly small number that passes through. The county pays it to the city, and the city pays it to Novi. The interlocal, The city's economic development agreement contains a provision that says the Concord Master Venture has to market the property, so put it up for, you know, advertise that we have apartments for rent over here, until such time as it's 90% occupied, because it becomes pointless to advertise apartments they're already that highly occupied. That's basically industry information. So that particular provision was not included in the interlocal agreement with the county, and I don't think it matters much at all, but they asked to have it included, so that's what this is.

Question for Valerie. Okay, thank you. All right, and I think that concludes the items that we have on for discussion tonight. I will mention that I am recommending or requesting that we add two additional items to the agenda for Thursday night. The first one is action that we need to take in regards to the Concord United Committee. which I think we've communicated to all of you some of the discussions that we've had. And then the other item is adding an item for the support for affordable housing with Cooperative Christian Ministries and the Rebuilders Campus that we've talked about. And that will require some discussion and budget amendments and so forth, if everybody's okay with that. Okay, and that being said, we do have need for a closed session this afternoon. So at this time, I would entertain a motion that we go into closed session. Pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11a2 in order to prevent the premature disclosure of an honorary degree, scholarship, prize, or similar award. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Is there discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, no. We're now in closed session. Thank you.